


Birthday Gifts

by fabrega



Category: Thick of It (UK)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malcolm shares his cake. A tag to 3x05.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday Gifts

Malcolm has taken Nicola's commandeered car back to his office; there is still cake to be eaten and the tiniest of celebrations to be had. Tonight might even be considered a success! When he gets back, there is a big pile of paperwork on his desk with a note stuck to the top that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY. 

He is still sitting in his office an hour later, staring somewhere past the cake, when he hears Ollie's voice from the hallway.

"No, Nicola, I'm sure he's not here." A pause as his footsteps draw closer. "Yes, I've _knocked_. No, I slaughtered a goat outside his door and waited to see if the smell of fresh blood drew him out. Of _course_ I knocked. There wasn't an answer. What do you--" Nicola, who is obviously on the other end of Ollie's phone call, seems to cut him off. "'There's a light on in his office'? Nicola, are you outside with _binoculars_? Are you Malcolm-watching?!" Ollie's footsteps have stopped. It sounds like he's right outside Malcolm's door. "Look, I swear to you he isn't here. Can I go home now? I have had the world's shittiest evening." Another pause, this one punctuated by small, tinny-sounding shouting. "There's no need to get _angry_ \--"

Malcolm takes this opportunity to open the door.

"Shit!" Ollie drops his phone. He fumbles it once or twice before it clatters to the ground. When he manages to get it back again, he says: "I--I've found him. I'll call you back." Then he turns back to Malcolm. "How do you _do_ that?"

Malcolm just glares at Ollie, ushering him into his office.

"I really thought you would have gone home by now," Ollie says, looking around. As his gaze reaches the window, he says, a bit too urgently for it to be a suggestion, "You might want to close the curtains."

Malcolm glares at him, but is already halfway to the window. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Ollie sighs and rubs at his eyes, dropping into a chair in front of Malcolm's desk without invitation. "I am here to tell you that Nicola Murray is Very Upset with you, Malcolm Tucker." The phrase sounds rehearsed, capital letters and all.

"Nicola's upset with _me_? Why the fuck would she be upset with _me_?" Malcolm sits as well. His tone of voice has made it perfectly obvious that if anybody had any right to feel let down by what happened at the radio station tonight, it is certainly not Nicola Murray.

"I believe she's upset because she thought you came down to the station to fix things, and then you left without, y'know, _fixing_ anything." Ollie looks very tired.

"What the fuck made her think I was going to fix anything? I can't just come down to the station to enjoy the shitshow?"

Ollie sighs, thinking back to the veins he'd seen throbbing on Malcolm's forehead as he shouted at Stewart. "Right, because we definitely don't clean up after the Nicola Murray Shitshow every single fucking day. She's like a backed-up toilet that just keeps spraying incompetence and shit like a geyser every time you use it. And your job--and my job, apparently--is to stand by with a mop and shout at people not to flush, because the toilet certainly can't help itself."

Malcolm's look is more suspicion than anything else. "Now, that's not very nice--" (This almost sounds sincere.)

"Do you know what she _did_ tonight?" Ollie interrupts him. "She came round Emma's flat--"

"That's your girlfriend?" Malcolm interjects, a clarifying aside to which he definitely already knows the answer.

"My ex-girlfriend, thank you Malcolm, Nicola came round my _ex-girlfriend's_ flat and dragged me out of a break-up argument to come here and talk to you. She even helped Emma load my things into my car so that we could 'hurry this along'." Ollie's air-quotes are absolutely scathing. "And then she shoved me in her fucking minivan and dropped me off here so I could express her displeasure to you. It was one bag over my head short of a kidnapping. I'm not sure what good she thought it would do."

Malcolm looks down at his desk, like he wants to say something like "Wow, that's rough" but doesn't know how to make a big deal out of sympathy. Ollie says nothing, just broods a little, rubbing his eyes without taking his glasses off, wondering if there was any chance he'd ended his political career by bad-mouthing his boss in front of Malcolm. Probably not, but a man can hope.

"Cunt cake?" Malcolm says suddenly, looking up.

Ollie eyes him suspiciously. "Is that an insult you're not sure of or an actual question?"

Malcolm opens the cake box to show him. "Tom sent it," he says, his voice sort of defiant and proud. Several slices are missing. It says:

HAP  
BIRTHD  
C*N  


"That is, that is very touching, Malcolm. I didn't know it was your birthday." Ollie watches the way Malcolm shrugs, picking a piece of the cake out of the proffered box with careful fingers. "Did you get anything nice?"

"You're eating it," Malcolm replies matter-of-factly. "Well, that and not having to clean up after Nicola this evening."

Ollie looks at Malcolm, disbelieving. "I'll be sure to tell her that. She'll be thrilled that the probable corpse of her political career has brought you birthday joy." He finds himself hoping his birthdays are never so bleak.

He _finds_ himself rooting through his bag without even realizing it, one hand full of cake and the other down amongst the things he'd mostly brought from Emma's, trying to find even one small thing that could double as an impromptu birthday gift. It's not that he thinks Malcolm wants a gift or would accept a gift, or even that Malcolm has ever done anything deserving of gifts, but god, nobody deserves _this_ (except maybe Phil). Still, there's not much in his bag that would do; it's mostly loose items Emma could throw at him--some mismatched socks, one small bowl, a few CDs he'd bought her she'd apparently never liked, the last of the food he'd attempted to make for dinner. It's not a promising assortment. He finishes his cake, not saying anything. Malcolm has helped himself to a slice as well, and it's strangely silent as they eat. This feels like the first time Ollie's been in Malcolm's office that he hasn't been actively shouted at.

He looks up at Malcolm and opens and closes his mouth like he's going to say something but has thought infinitely better of it. Then, to everyone's surprise--including his own--he tries again. "Look, Malcolm, it's not that late. What say you and I go for out for a pint or something?"

There is a split second where Malcolm looks like he's almost considering it, where he looks down at the cake and back up at Ollie, but just as quickly his face closes up. It reminds Ollie a little of a bear trap, and he's got the distinct feeling his leg's just been caught. "Go for drinks? With you? I'd sooner rip my liver out of my abdomen with my own fuckin' bare hands and fling it against the wall until I fuckin' passed out. It'd have the same effect, and then I could still drink you under the fuckin' table."

Ollie puts his hands up. "Alright, I get it, Malcolm. You're a horrible, cranky old man. Forget I asked." He stands up, leans a little way across the desk, his arms strangely at his side. "Happy birthday, Malcolm." Then he exits the room. 

It isn't until after Ollie's left that Malcolm notices the orange Ollie must have deposited on the front edge of the desk. He stares at it, his lips pursed, then up at the door Ollie closed behind himself.

Outside, Ollie resists the urge to lean against the wall in shock; instead, he walks towards the exit, wondering what he's just done.


End file.
